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| Justice Department memo argues Obama recess appointments were legal |
| 2012-01-13 |
| [The Hill] The Department of Justice offered a defense Thursday for President B.O.'s controversial decision to make several recess appointments while Congress was holding pro forma sessions. In a memo, Justice argued the pro forma sessions held every third day in the Senate do not constitute a functioning body that can render advice and consent on the president's nominees. It said the president acted consistently under the law by making the appointments. "Although the Senate will have held pro forma sessions regularly from January 3 to January 23, in our judgment, those sessions do not interrupt the intrasession recess in a manner that would preclude the president from determining that the Senate remains unavailable throughout to 'receive communications from the president or participate as a body in making appointments,'" Virginia Seitz, assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote in the memo dated Jan. 6. The Office of Legal Counsel concluded the president has authority to make recess appointments during a recess and that Congress can only prevent the president from making such appointments "by remaining continuously in session and available to receive and act on nominations," not by holding pro forma sessions. Republicans, who had set up the pro forma sessions to prevent Obama from making the appointments, are expected to challenge them in court. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #12 Holder's DOJ said what? I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! |
| Posted by: OCCD 2012-01-13 15:24 |
| #11 ...and your point is? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2012-01-13 15:10 |
| #10 During an election year when the battle lines have been drawn between government overreach and its all Congresses fault. Beyond bafflingly stupid. If the Republicans can't use this to capture all 50 states they are pathetic. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2012-01-13 14:39 |
| #9 Dated after the act. Cute. And if it hadn't come to a favorable conclusion, want to bet it would have been declared a "privileged communication" and buried a mile deep? |
| Posted by: mojo 2012-01-13 14:05 |
| #8 Moose: I have to agree about the spiraling descent. The Roman Republic collapsed and became an Empire over about a century or so. From the Gracchi brothers to Gaius Marius to Sulla to Pompey to Caesar to Anthony to Octavian, there was 1) a will to get one's way at the expense of others 2) a willingness to bend the rules of the mos maiorum, and 3) a willingness to use violence to get the first two. Gibbons was able to draw a near straight line from Republic to Empire. But if you had asked the Romans at any point along the way, they would have denied fiercely that the Republic could ever fall. It did. Ours could too. But good luck finding a modest man who wants to be president, who is electable, who will roll the power of the presidency back. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2012-01-13 13:51 |
| #7 The GOP has got to start making the Dems play by the same rules they set. The Pubs don't control the Senate, and the Majority Leader (the same who blocked Bush from making recess appointments using the same pro-forma sessions) now sez it's okay to do this. So it's hard for the GOP to do anything right now. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2012-01-13 13:47 |
| #6 Though it's rather difficult to distinguish, it's important to note that power grabs of *individual* presidents coexist with power grabs by the office of the presidency. That is, often they are parallel, but sometimes they are not. It could be said that almost since the founding of the presidency, there has always been a general movement towards an "imperial presidency", that is irresistible to anyone who sits in the chair, be they Democrat or Republican. The only way this can be changed is if a candidate, before they are elected, have a personal intention to *diminish* the power of the presidency. You can see how this runs counter to the psychology of achieving the office in the first place. "Elect me so that I can work with congress to reduce the power of the presidency." As bizarre as that sounds, this is desperately needed to break our spiraling descent into monarchy. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2012-01-13 13:19 |
| #5 Warthog, I have an operational definition of good and bad. Good is anything you do that benefits you. Bad is ... anything that you do that benefits you. Who sets out to bang their own thumb? We only consciously set out to do what we think will benefit us. Bad benefits you right now but leads to your long term determent. Good almost always hurts right now but leads to your long term betterment. B.O. wants to pick a fight with the House Republicans and thinks that the MSM will back him. B.O. has traded the long term health of our constitutional checks and balances for short term political gain. One argument is don't give the president a fight that he clearly wants. Leave it to the GOP presidential candidates to fight B. O. on this issue. I think that B.O. made a mistake. People hate ObamaCare not only because of what the bill contained, but how he went about shoving it down our throats. This is more of the same. B.O. might as well have painted a sign that says "I am a Chicago political machine tyrant". |
| Posted by: Mike Ramsey 2012-01-13 13:03 |
| #4 Mike R....maybe not so stupid...only stupid if someone calls you on it and so far Congress has not lifted a finger so like any dictator...he keeps rolling on. History favors the bold so if we want to be on the right side of it...time to get off our collective asses and do something to get Dr. Evil out of office.. |
| Posted by: Warthog 2012-01-13 11:22 |
| #3 Glenmore and OldSpook, Ditto. What an incredibly shortsighted and stupid move by B. O.. |
| Posted by: Mike Ramsey 2012-01-13 09:07 |
| #2 The serious problem here is in allowing the Executive, ANY Executive, to determine the operating rules for the Legislature; the Senate is not in Recess unless the SENATE says it is in Recess. If this stands, where does it stop? Recess appointments during lunch break? If Congress doesn't pass a Budget (as it hasn't for years) can the Executive just declare Congress immaterial and pass his own budget? Can the Executive just dispense with Congress and Declare War on his own? (Oh, right, already sort of did that by Declaring Kinetic Action or such.) The people favoring these tactics are either very short-sighted and don't see the danger to their side if control changes hands, or they are very confident that control will never change hands again. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2012-01-13 08:59 |
| #1 Yet somehow Bush respected the Dems when they did this exact thing to prevent recess appointments. The GOP has got to start making the Dems play by the same rules they set. Or they may as well put the Kick Me sign on thier own back, and be ready be beclown themselves again. This is just another example of the DC GOP being gutless and more interested in being the country club instead of governing the country. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2012-01-13 00:41 |